Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions

DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_29-1
# Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

Gender and New Age

Sônia Weidner Maluf*
Department of Anthropology, Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brazil

Keywords
Feminism; Counterculture; Difference; Individualism; Goddess; Gender and feminist studies

Definition
The dimension of gender is central to an understanding of New Age movements and spiritualities and
affects various aspects. The first is the influence of feminism, along with the values of the counterculture
movements, on the values and moral configurations of the New Age. The second is the important presence
(quantitative and qualitative) of women in the New Age spiritualities and on their various hierarchical
scales. The third aspect is that of how values, discourses, and practices related to New Age spiritualities
are based on gender perspectives that are distinct but not necessarily exclusive: a perspective that
emphasizes sexual difference and a critical perspective on the dualisms of gender.

Introduction
More than being just one of the aspects of New Age spiritualities and movements, the feminist and gender
dimensions are constitutive of these movements, in the ways that sexual difference is both represented and
constructed at the interior of these movements.
The gender dimension is not simply one aspect of the New Age universe. It shapes the discourses and
social practices of the New Age spiritual movements and is also an important interpretive guide in studies
of religion and spirituality.
The cultural and political effervescence of the second half of the twentieth century, marked by
counterculture, youth, and feminist movements, was an important scenario for the emergence of the
alternative spiritualities identified as parts of the New Age movements. In the case of feminism, in
addition to the important change in the situation of women, from an economic perspective and in terms of
labor (with their growing presence in the labor market), the cultural and symbolic changes had significant
impact. One of the central tenets of the movement, that “the personal is political,” synthesizes many of the
aspirations of the period. One of the discursive distinctions of the adepts of alternative spiritualities, in
relation to the broader religious field, is the individualized dimension of the spiritual experience and the
predominance of the political project for changing the world based on a transformation of oneself.
Feminism and the new configuration of gender since the 1970s has raised questions related to ways of
life, to a criticism of capitalist consumption, sexual liberation, a criticism of hierarchies in the family and
in conjugality, and concerning the right to one’s own body – which was expressed in the feminist struggles
of the 1970s in the struggle for the legalization of abortion, a demand that directly confronted hegemonic
religious discourses.

*Email: soniawmaluf@gmail.com

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Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_29-1
# Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

To think of dimensions of life that until that time were restricted to the domestic and private realm, as
parts of a new politics, combined with a criticism of the traditional religions, called religions of difference
according to Woodhead (2007), in which not only hierarchies of gender are constructed and reproduced,
but in which male power is also made sacred.
As various authors have affirmed, the detraditionalization in the religious field fed both nonreligious as
well as post-traditional spiritual perspectives, including the New Age movements (Woodhead 2007; Heelas
1995; Heelas et al. 2005). For Woodhead (2007), the gender revolution had an important role in the decline of
Christianity in the period and in the emergence of holistic spiritualities. The countercultural and feminist ideal
in the New Age movements is present in various ways, even contradictory ones: the criticism of Western
rationalism and the valorization of emotion and intuition; the ritualization of daily life; the valorization of
individual choices; the centrality of corporal experience; the valorization of life in community, in detriment to
the nuclear family; as well as others. In addition, some of these studies show how the same individuals
circulate through the different spheres of the counterculture, feminism, the ecological struggle, and alternative
spiritualities, revealing that not only were the movements contemporary to each other but that they were
articulated through networks and the circulation of individuals.
A similar dynamics of circulation and mutual influence was analyzed in relation to the spiritual movements
of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century, many of which were used as references for the New
Age movements, and the suffragist and socialist struggles of the period (Braude 1989).
Specifically in Latin America, in addition to the intersections with the counterculture movements,
feminism, and the more recent ecological movements, the new spiritualities shared a common field with
the political movements that struggled against the dictatorships in the region. For many militants the end
of these dictatorships led to a search for a recomposition of their life projects and trajectories.

Women in the New Spiritualities

The important if not predominant presence of women in the New Age spiritualities mainly in the United
States and Great Britain is another question that has been addressed in the studies of these movements. For
many authors, this feminine predominance composes what they denominate as the New Age gender
puzzle: that is, the question of how to explain this majority presence of women in these movements,
interpreted as their greater affinity for spiritualities, in contrast to the male presence (Heelas et al. 2005;
Houtman and Aupers 2008, and others). Contrary to some discourses internal to the spiritual movements,
which seek to reinforce the feminine meanings of the practices and discourses in this field, like the
reinforcement of relational dimensions, of emotion, of intuition, and other aspects, sociological and
anthropological analyses have sought to discuss the meaning of these movements in the context of late
modernity in Western countries and the new gender configurations since the second half of the twentieth
century. This is a question that would require not only a theory of gender of the new spiritual movements
but also a theory of gender of secularization and of modernity itself.
A first interpretive line of this feminist predominance seeks to connect it to the contradictions
experienced by women in relation to the ambivalence between the so-called traditional roles and their
presence in the labor market and in spheres considered traditionally male. In the analysis of Woodhead
(2007), the New Age movements, like other forms of spirituality and of religiosity, would be modes of
accommodation of gender conflicts, which do not effectively challenge gender hierarchies. One of the
reasons for this would be the maintenance of the feminine and the masculine as two dichotomist spheres in
most holistic spiritualities. The exception, according to Woodhead’s typology of the relationship between
forms of religiosity and power, are the feminist goddess movements, including Wicca and contemporary

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Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_29-1
# Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

witchcraft (Woodhead 2007; Salomonsen 2002). This is because these movements more explicitly
question the traditional gender dualisms and constitute more effective forms of empowerment of women.
Another analytic perspective seeks to understand the general meanings of these new spiritualities,
based on the centrality that they give to the construction of the self and to the reconfiguration of individual
subjectivities. If on the one hand the new spiritualities propose a rupture in relation to the hegemonic
institutions and ideologies in the modern West, with their criticism of what they call scientific rationalism
and the dualisms of mind and body, on the other there is a strong presence of individualist ideology and of
projects for construction of spiritual paths and of individual and egalitarian life. As an expression of
contemporary forms of modern individualism, even that which gives value to dimensions such as
singularity and experience, these new spiritualities are also interpreted by scholars in the field as
alternative modes of subjectification for women, as opportunities to construct individual personal pro-
jects, and as forms of women’s increased autonomy. This perspective is a bit different from that which
interprets feminine predominance based on their search for the resolution of afflictions stemming from
conflicts related to the multiple and contradictory demands and interpellations to which contemporary
women are subject (as they occupy traditionally male positions in the labor market and spaces of power,
while simultaneously needing to be submitted to hierarchical gender regimes). More than a mode of
accommodation and masking of conflicts brought by gender inequality, these forms of spirituality would
be spaces for an individualization of the construction of the self and for the experience of more egalitarian
relationships.
A third line of scholarship concerning the feminine predominance in the New Age spiritualities
analyzes the emphasis given to individual choices and trajectories and to the adoption of private and
particular forms of ritual as being more propitious to the participation of women, by shifting the religious
and spiritual practice from public space to domestic and private space.
One common aspect to the approaches to the predominance of women in the New Age is the
presumption that spiritual practice and experience has different meanings for men and women. But
another question remains, which is: what would be the specificity of the New Age in the production or
reproduction of gender and in its deconstruction?

Dimensions of Gender and Sexuality in New Age Spiritualities

Beyond the social composition of these movements and the explanation about the predominance of
women, another analytic perspective considers gender configurations found in the cosmology, rituals,
values, and practices linked to new spiritualities. This also means considering the dimensions of power
present in the spiritual and religious field, and specifically in relation to gender hierarchies; how much do
they reproduce or to what degree do they construct forms of resistance to gender hierarchies and
inequalities? Basically two different gender perspectives are present in the New Age spiritual movements
and reflect this paradox: on the one hand a perspective that valorizes differences and on the other a
perspective critical of the dualisms of gender.
The perspective that valorizes difference emphasizes what would be the feminine dimension of the new
spiritualities, which value aspects that contrast with the hegemonic male universe: emotion in contrast to
objectivity; intuition in contrast to rationalism; communitarianism in contrast to individualism, etc. There
is also a recurrent use of feminine and maternal metaphors to valorize what would be powers of the
feminine and of women and to designate important values of these movements, such as the idea of mother
earth, care for others and the planet, sorority, etc.
In the case of the perspective that seeks to deconstruct gender differences and dualisms, the emphasis is
placed on the idea of autonomy and empowerment and on the valorization of egalitarianism and on the

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Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_29-1
# Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

rejection of gender hierarchies (including those in the spiritual field). This line also criticizes the
hegemonic masculinities, seeking to present other possibilities of subjectification for men, involving
other modes of corporal perception, expression of emotions and valorization of personal relations.
In this perspective, criticism of forms of conjugality, family, and compulsory heterosexuality appears as
one of the practical and discursive elements present in the experiences of the individuals involved.
But even these classifications of the different spiritual movements of the New Age based on a greater or
lesser reproduction or resistance to the hegemonic gender ideologies should be relativized. In a certain
way, these polarized perspectives reflect the paradox present in the history of feminism and of women’s
resistance struggles, discussed by feminist historian Joan Scott (1996), when she narrated the strategies
related to the discourses of difference as a form of combating inequalities. These two perspectives of the
New Age spiritual movements in relation to gender difference found correspondence in academic theories
in the field of gender and in the feminist political field. On the one hand, there was a project for
transcendence of gender and on the other the affirmation of difference as a feminist project. Nevertheless,
both in the sphere of spiritualities and in the academic world, these concepts and theories are not realized
in a pure form. The spirituality seen as predominantly feminine provides spaces for the empowerment and
autonomy of women; the perspective for a transcendence of the dualism of gender suggests other modes
of masculinity that incorporate and approximate men with sensibilities and ways of acting identified with
feminine ways. Thus, models that synthesize polar opposition should be relativized.
These different gender perspectives in the New Age universe reveal how religious cosmologies are
articulated with academic theories, political cultures, and specifically the feminist political imaginary.
But if religion and forms of spirituality are part of the system of power that institutes difference as
inequality, reproducing or resisting this system of power, it is also a space of agency and inventiveness on
the part of individuals. Men and women act in the interior of these movements, transforming them and
their gendered perspectives. This dimension is not highly considered in the typologies constructed about
the relationship between types of religiosity and reproduction or resistance to gender inequality.
This relates to the methodological issue of the studies about the new spiritualities and the New Age. The
feminist and gender studies of religion begin with a criticism of the androcentric character of traditional
religious studies, which are often focused on great texts, dogmas, and established rituals, proposing as an
alternative the approach of lived experience, of daily practices, and of concrete relations. It is by observing
these dimensions that the modes of construction, reproduction, or resistance to gender inequalities in the
New Age spiritual movements can be understood.

Cross-References
▶ Counterculture
▶ Individualism
▶ Modernity
▶ Neo-Paganism
▶ New Age
▶ Religions of the Self

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Encyclopedia of Latin American Religions
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-08956-0_29-1
# Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015

References
Braude A (1989) Radical spirits: spiritualism and women’s rights in nineteenth-century America. Beacon,
Boston
Heelas P (1995) Introduction: detraditionalization and its rivals. In: Heelas P, Lash S, Morris P (eds)
Detraditionalization: critical reflections on authority and identity. Blackwell, Oxford, pp 1–20
Heelas P, Woodhead L et al (2005) The spiritual revolution. Why religion is giving way to spirituality.
Blackwel, Oxford
Houtman D, Aupers S (2008) The spiritual revolution and de new age gender puzzle: the sacralization of
the self in late modernity (1980–2000). In: Aune K, Sharma S, Vincett G (eds) Women and religion in
the west. Challengin secularization. Ashgate, Birlington, pp 99–118
Salomonsen J (2002) Enchanted feminism: ritual, gender and divinity among the reclaiming witches of
San Francisco. Routledge, London/New York
Scott J (1996) Only paradoxes to offer: French feminists and the rights of man. Harvard University Press,
Cambridge, MA
Woodhead L (2007) Gender differences in religious practice and significance. In: Beckford J, Demerath
NJ III (eds) The sage handbook of the sociology of religion. Sage, Los Angeles/London/New Delhi/
Singapore, pp 550–570

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